a very weasley christmas
by ipsa dixit
Summary: "Welcome to the family," Albus says, grinning. Albus' wide grin is so big and so contagious that Scorpius can't help but smile, too, and he looks around and everyone else is smiling and he feels warm—not just from the sweater.


_prompts at the bottom_

 _1390 words, by google docs_

* * *

The Manor's quiet.

The quiet reaches into the house and bites it and surrounds it and engulfs it and makes the air stale and suffocating.

Scorpius has been home for less than a week and he already wants leave. He wants to leave and walk away and never come back because he can't _breathe_ through the silence. The silence is screaming in his ears and rattling his brain and he feels…

Empty.

Glancing up, Scorpius can tell that his father feels empty, too. They're sitting at their table, eating dinner, and Scorpius' father hasn't looked at him _once_. There's only one person missing from their table, but it seems like there's been hundreds of people taken away, hundreds of people who brought _life_ to their dinners, hundreds of spirits _gone_.

Scorpius wants to say something, anything, to pierce the veil of silence that has draped over them. He opens his mouth but no words come out. They're stuck. He can't find the consonants to string together with the vowels to form any single word.

Will he even be able to speak again?

Instead of trying to defeat the silence, Scorpius succumbs and pushes his chair away, getting up and walking away.

His mother would've told him to sit down and finish his dinner—he had hardly eaten anything! Was something wrong? He should sit down and talk about it with his parents. He could trust them. They _love_ him.

His mother doesn't say anything.

His mother isn't here anymore.

His father doesn't look up.

* * *

"I don't want to go home for Christmas, Al."

It's a weird sentence but it's true. Scorpius cringes when thinking of the dark and gloom his house had become. In previous years Scorpius couldn't _wait_ to go home for Christmas. His house would smell like gingerbread, there would be twinkling lights _everywhere_ , and his mother would make sure that everyone, even Scorpius' father, felt the Christmas joy.

Without his mother, would Christmas even _hold_ any joy?

"Do you want to stay at Hogwarts? I'd stay with you."

Albus' response makes Scorpius squirm. Christmas at Hogwarts doesn't feel right. He knows that lots of people stay at Hogwarts, but not _Scorpius_. He goes home.

Except what is home?

Home is where is nice and soft and light and _nothing_ like the quiet Manor.

Does Scorpius even have a home without his mother?

"No, not really," Scorpius responses, instead. Albus is his best mate, but he doesn't know _how_ to tell him that his stomach is twisting and layering and everything feels so _wrong_.

"Well, do you want to come over to the Burrow for Christmas?"

Albus' offer feels light a ray of light is hitting Scorpius, right between his eyes, filling him with warmth and filling a little bit of the gaping hole in his body.

"Go to the Burrow?" he asks, quietly. Albus' grins at Scorpius and dimples appear, almost as deep as the hole in Scorpius' heart.

"Yeah, well, we always have a lot of people. What's one more?" Albus' grin dips and Scorpius supposes that something changed on _his_ face because there's something that feels _wrong_ about going to someone else's house for Christmas. "And your dad, too," Albus adds with a whisper.

"We'd love to," Scorpius whispers. His stomach still feels all tied up, but some of the knots are beginning to unravel, just a bit.

* * *

Scorpius does a quick headcount. There's twenty-six people, including Albus, who Scorpius has been sticking to for the past hour, like a moth to a light.

His dad isn't here.

"You sure you invited him, too?" Scorpius asks. He knows that he's asked Albus well over ten times, but there's a part of his brain that keeps on reminding him that their parents _hate_ each other and they've only ever interacted through—well, through Scorpius' mom. She was always the peacemaker.

"I'm _sure_ , Scorp," Albus says, once again.

Scorpius doesn't feel right at the Weasley's without his father. He doesn't feel right celebrating Christmas with a different family that not his. He knows that everyone's fine with Scorpius being there, but his father is a former Death Eater. Nobody wants a Death Eater to be a side dish for their Christmas turkey.

Or maybe his father is too busy moping and covering himself with the thick silence that seems ever-present in the Manor, now. Or maybe his father is just getting ready and he'll _be here_.

Scorpius doubts it.

Albus introduces him to all of his cousins and they each fly by, one blurring into another and 'Teddy' is quickly replaced by 'Louis' and then 'Fred' and Scorpius doesn't remember anything by the time they get inside and a cup of hot cocoa is placed in front of him.

"It's wonderful to have you, Scorpius," is said, and Scorpius looks up and the fact that a redhead is talking to him doesn't jog his memory on the name, but he thinks it's the oldest one, Albus' grandfather. Scorpius nods.

Scorpius makes sure to sit next to Albus as other people come and go and everything's loud and chaotic and Scorpius feels overwhelmed to be pulled so suddenly from the world of quiet. He starts to relax, though, and lets some air off and the hot chocolate helps, filling him with a warmth that can only be described as 'family'.

Albus drags him by the hand into the living room after a while and their are mounds and mounds of presents. Everyone comes in and starts opening presents but Scorpius isn't quite sure what to do. Albus hands him one package, a small one, for him from Albus himself, but Scorpius tucks it away, telling himself that he'll open it later. There's even more noise here and Scorpius doesn't know why he agreed to this. He doesn't know these people and, although it's better than the Manor's quiet, he feels homesick.

After a while, everyone's finished. Albus' grandmother—Molly, Scorpius remembers with a jolt—says that she has one last present.

She returns with the last package and it's a lumpy package, as if it was wrapped hastily, but Scorpius can almost feel the love radiating off of her, hitting him and bouncing around and touching everyone in the room.

She gives the package to Scorpius and he almost drops it.

"For me?" he asks. There's something tugging at his heart and he doesn't know what else to say. It's as if his heartstrings are being played with, pulled and pulled.

"For you," she confirms. Her smile is doubled, somehow, and it hits Scorpius like a ton of bricks. Scorpius feels Albus' hands on his and Albus gives him a nod, like ' _what are you waiting for?_ ' and they unwrap it, together.

It's a sweater.

It's a sweater with a big 'S' on it and it matches the one everyone else is wearing. A Weasley sweater. He's not a Weasley. Something in Scorpius hurts, aches, right behind his heart, on his sternum. It feels wrong, getting this present.

"You got a Weasley sweater!" Albus exclaims, pulling it out of Scorpius' had and displaying it to him. When Scorpius makes no move to put it on, Albus walks over and pulls it on with one, two, three pushes.

"Welcome to the family," Albus says, grinning. Albus' wide grin is so big and so contagious that Scorpius can't help but smile, too, and he looks around and everyone else is smiling and he feels warm—not just from the sweater.

Then a knock comes at the door and it strikes Scorpius' happiness and he's wondering who's coming to Christmas dinner _this_ late—their about to start!

And then Scorpius can see the blond and he's standing up and looking right at his father and his father is saying, "Am I late?" like he didn't show up three hours after everybody else.

And then his father smiles and it's a broken smile and it's a strained smile but it's _a smile_ and it hits Scorpius, fills him up and makes him feel as if everything will okay. Maybe not today, but someday. His father wraps his arm around Scorpius and he can feel his heart begin to start being repaired, thousands of cells starting to fill the hole. Scorpius feels his father place his head on Scorpius' head and give a little whisper.

"I couldn't miss Christmas."

* * *

 _for:_

 _assignment 7 [arts and crafts, task 2 - a non-weasley getting a weasley sweater]_

 _auction [family]_

 _writing club [character appreciation - the burrow; disney - winnie the pooh; amber's attic - 13; showtime - marilyn monroe; days of the month - husband appreciation day; lyric alley - 35; sophie's shelf - chiaroscuro lighting]_

 _bingo [27]_

 _easter basket [plain basket]_

 _guess the name [duke]_


End file.
